Happy Sunny Sunday, Neighbors.
On our final day of the holiday season, I’d like to wish you well for the new year and to also update you on an urgent village matter that will directly impact our quality of life in the coming years: solid waste collection. Strange to “talk trash” while also wishing you a Happy New Year, but the timing is quite important if not also awkward.
I originally posted this message on Nextdoor (link below) and emailed it to the database of village residents, so apologies if this is a re- or three-peat. I want to ensure that as many residents as possible are aware of some serious impending changes regarding how/when our garbage, recycling and yard waste/debris are collected. I’m actively soliciting feedback before a critical commission meeting this Tuesday, January 5.
As you are likely aware, we have trash issues, and they’re coming to a head on Tuesday. The quality of our service has been diminishing while our rates increase. In 2019, the then-manager and commission allowed our trash contract to expire, and since then we’ve been chasing a solution while existing without a village manager who’s charged with spearheading that effort for us. Our new manager, Mario Diaz, started just one month ago, and he tackled “trash” immediately at the commission’s direction, which is the reason for this post and request for feedback.
At the Tuesday, January 5, 7pm commission meeting, Mario will be presenting options for trash collection. He based his research on past commission meetings when we debated trash and on his own experience with solid waste after consulting with other experts. He’s also presenting his recommendation to move to Miami-Dade County trash collection, which will be dramatically different in several ways. If the commission votes to approve Mario’s recommendation on Tuesday, the changes will start soon and will be long-term. I don’t want anyone surprised because this happened so quickly and right after the holidays when we’ve all been preoccupied. Mario did what we asked him to do and as quickly as we requested. Now, the commission fulfills its part of process on Tuesday.
I’m purposely not sharing my opinion in this email. Rather, I’m encouraging you to read the agenda item for yourself and let me know what you think. I’m only one of five commissioners voting on the matter, so feel free to share your thoughts with us all separately. (Florida has cumbersome laws about elected officials being part of a conversation outside of a public meeting, so contact us separately and never share what any official said about any village business.) Educate yourself on trash now before the changes take place. I’d much rather hear your opinions now than your complaints later when trash bites you in the butt!
You’ll also notice several other important agenda items, including Mario’s 2021 priorities and outsourcing our Public Works manager, among other things. Engage with me on all topics, please.
After too much holiday baking (i.e., eating), winter-cleaning our overgrown gardens for the past week, and supporting my husband, Dan Schneiger, on his wildly successful village food drive (thanks to everyone who contributed!), I’m spending most of the day today in final meeting preparations, plus I’ll also be working on village business Monday night. Please don’t hesitate to reply to this email or call my village cell: 305.213.5139. I have been “talking trash” with residents for many months, and I’m hoping to hear from you, too. More than anything, I’m really hoping to resolve our trash situation soon so I can focus on Mac’s 2021 Wish List for Biscayne Park. Look for another post on that topic.
Here’s to your health & happiness in 2021, and cheers to Biscayne Park, our “Oasis in the Heart of Miami.” That short tagline speaks volumes about the potential of our lovely community, so I hope it sticks. It’s my north star in my work as one of your commissioners.
Link
to the Jan5 meeting agenda, back-up materials, and Zoom
instructions. Note separate instructions about how to make public comment:
Link
to my Nextdoor post on the topic of “trash” and other agenda items:
https://nextdoor.com/p/g_5NmmBmxtx7?view=detail
Best regards,
Mac
MacDonald
Kennedy
Commissioner,
Village of Biscayne Park
Mac, there are two kinds of BP residents who complained about WastePro. One group never wanted to outsource sanitation, and they complained, often bitterly, about everything WastePro did and didn't do. Their complaints were relentless, and they never changed. The second kind of resident noticed imperfections, especially at the beginning of the contract (which started in early 2014), and the complaints were about specific failings. We at the time worked with WastePro, urged them to make adjustments, helped them, and things got better. Then, at the end of 2016, we had a different kind of Commission that didn't attend to anything of any kind, ever, and WastePro slid. We didn't monitor them properly, we didn't work with them, and they took, I suppose, what for them was the path of least resistance. (They weren't getting any valid resistance from us.) At the end of that, the contract ended, our Commission and management still didn't do anything, and we wound up with meaningless extensions at increasing price. Anyone can blame this on WastePro, but it was very much our fault, too.
ReplyDeleteWastePro is workable. They don't want to lose the contract with us. If Mario, and the present Commission, work cooperatively with them, things will improve, just as they did before. One thing managers, especially those who feel like they're on the launch pad to go some place big, do is make a mark. Sometimes, that mark is to change something. Sometimes, it's to outsource something. Maybe Mario has contacts with the county. Maybe he just wants to be the guy who changed our system from WastePro to anyone else. Let's not be too hasty. Remember, we and WastePro have been at a huge disadvantage since the end of 2016. Maybe Mario, you, and Art can right things. Try.
As for Tudor's sudden production of numbers which are supposed to reflect the cost of taking the program back in house, the numbers are irrational, and they are mostly like Donald Trump's assertion of "hundreds of thousands of votes" that he was ahead in Georgia and Pennsylvania. These are votes that no one can find, and that mysteriously evaporated. Tudor's not in a position to know. He never was. He has no interest in what we do about sanitation, and he never did. He sat there for four years and never had one word to say about any of this. And now that he's (mercifully) not there, he has substantive insights and figures? Did you enjoy the recent "holidays?" Did you by any chance get to meet the real Santa Claus?
Fred
As an aside, Mario did talk to WastePro, and WastePro (naturally) wants to continue to serve us. But again, they want to modernize the operation they use here, and they want us to modernize. For example, they want to rely on the trucks that use automated arms to lift and empty bins into the trucks.
DeleteHere in BP, we think we're different. We think we're quaint. We don't want to be like anyone else. For some reason, we seem to think we're entitled to special treatment. When we contracted with WastePro, we didn't want the universal blue recycling receptacles. No, we had to have green ones. Because we have to be different. And some of us have inexplicably decided we like that old-timey image of the energetic and smiling "garbage man," who cheerfully lifts our bins of garbage, and slings it into that old-timey truck. ("Howdy, ma'am. Howdy, sir. Lovely day, isn't it. Little Timmy and little Suzie are gettin' big.") An automated arm that does it more quickly and efficiently, without risk of injury to these garbage men for whom we claim to have such affection, is just so...eww. The next thing we know, instead of throwing open our windows all summer, and turning on fans to reduce the sweltering, some of us will get central air conditioning systems. And cars, instead of horse carts or bicycles. Won't that be the sad end to a nostalgic era?
We believe we have a great new manager, and 40% of our Commission wants something adaptive for the Village. WastePro is eager to work with us. Let's work with them.
Fred
No mail service in Biscayne Park since last Saturday does the village manager and commissioners know that there’s no mail service delivery in Biscayne Park we have 3000 residents 1200 homes not receiving mail can we have the city manager and a couple of the commissioners look into it mail is just as important as Waste Pro is
ReplyDelete